Those Without Hope
by MirrorFade
Summary: When she smiled at him, a pale, weak imitation of the real thing, he knew what she bared at him with her cold eyes and barely healed scar, was the smile of one without hope. ANBU had recruited another.


**So, here I am again. More stuff after the timeskip, and centered around several of my two of my favorite characters, Hyuga Hinata and Hyuga Neji. I made a reference to one of my other fics, "Smiles", but if you read this as a stand-alone, I think it will make sense, if I am wrong, please tell me so. Also, I apologize if anyone got a headache reading "To Love A Traitor", my misfired attempt to try out a different writing style. I can say with confidence that I failed miserably. But hey, we've all gotta fall sometimes. So anyways, here's my latest story, hope you all like it! Please review after you read, and tell me what you think! Criticism, so long as it is constructive, is welcome! **

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**Title: **Those Without Hope

**Author: **Abby K

**Rating: **PG-13, for swearing

**Word Count (not counting author's notes): **740

**Disclaimer: **I think you know it by heart by now.

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Neji knew she was dead when she got her tattoo. He knew his cousin, or the kunoich he known as his cousin, was gone. Not dead, not really, but gone. He had suspected this was the case for a bit, but hadn't done anything, mostly out of the pale shard of a hope that he was wrong, that it was all a misunderstanding, a simple error on his part, but the Hyuga protégée knew better now. Hinata was dead now, not in body, for her heart was still beating strong, still pumping warm, crimson blood through her body, but dead where it mattered, in spirit.

His cousin was a fighter, though not many would consider the eldest heir to the Hyuga Main Branch as such. Neji knew different. It had taken him time to recognize it, but now he knew without a shard of doubt that Hinata was a strong shinobi, perhaps even greater than him. For his quiet-he could no longer call her shy-cousin had a great power, a skill many trained hard and few truly attained: the power to endure.

Though it seemed even that had failed her now. Something had happened on her last mission, something bad, Neji knew, something very bad. No one was talking about it, but the signs were hard to miss. Hyuga Hinata no longer showed her face, concealing it within the shadows cast by the hood of her tattered and weather-beaten coat. She was cold now, even to him, and no longer stuttered.

In recent weeks, she had made her presence in the Hyuga manner known to its inhabitants a grand total of twice. The first time had been when she had packed her few possessions into four cardboard boxes and walked out of the courtyard with them, managing to utter only two coherent sentences the entire time, a grand total of four words all together. Hello, goodbye, and fuck you.

Really, he should have seen it coming. Hyuga Neji should have known the day his younger cousin uttered so foul a statement as "fuck you" that the day, or even the week wouldn't come an end any sane person would consider pleasant. It hadn't. Three days after her departure from what had been her home for the first seventeen years of her life, and six weeks to the day since she had been promoted to jounin, Hyuga Hinata came back, a scarlet spiral tattooed on her left bicep and a snarling mask clenched in her hand. She had been slapped by her father, stared at by her sister, and snarled at by the clan Elders. Neji hadn't said anything to her, even when she turned her scared, emotionless face and cold eyes on him. There hadn't been anything to say, really. He knew what everyone knew.

ANBU was for those without hope.

Sure, there were the righteous, noble, brave idiots who joined seeking to serve their country and reach for a sense of glory they thought the mask could give them. They were called fools for a reason, and few of that caliber stayed within the ranks of the faceless, nameless fighters for long, claimed either by death of body or death of ideals. There was no glory to be found in serving ANBU.

Those who made up the bulk of the ranks and those who wore the mask for longest, those shinobi were already dead. They who wore the mask had lost their hope, their spirit, or had it taken from them. Neji knew Hinata had sought no glory when she had bared her arm and gritted her teeth to accept the scarlet tattoo. He knew why she had hidden her scarred face for so long, and why she bared it now. She was showing her face to the world, to her family, though there were few she actually cared for, one last time before the snarling mask she held onto so tightly became the only face she had to show. Hinata had no hope left, and this was her way of showing it, and Neji supposed, her way of saying goodbye. She might not have another chance. ANBU, the band of fighters dead in spirit, were rarely long for the world.

When she smiled at him, a pale, weak imitation of the real thing, he knew what she bared at him with her cold eyes and barely-healed scar, was the smile of one without hope. ANBU had recruited another.

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**Well, what did you think? I would really appreciate it if you would let me know! Also, if Hinata seemed OOC, the swearing and all, that's because she's older now, and time changes people. If it seemed like too much of a stretch, let me know and please give me some tips. Oh, and the burn reference: in "Smiles", I mention briefly that on one of her missions, Hinata took a **_**kanton **_**jutsu to the face. Anyway, I hope you liked and if you didn't, well, I hope you tell me why so I can improve and in the future write something you will like. Bye for now!**


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